Ogenblik
by Novocain
Summary: So it's wrong and they know it but don't care anymore. They have been undone and resewn, and their new cotton stuffing still has burrs left in it. Parvati and Padma and Harry. The war recreated them, and wrong is just a word.


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Parvati does not love Padma in anything more or greater than moments. They are reflections, exotic and beautiful, and the arch of a perfectly groomed eyebrow is enough for Parvati to understand.

Parvati understands Padma too well to love her in anything more or greater than moments, but she has always been in love with Narcissus and Echo.

She trails a delicate hand up her sister's inner thigh and smiled darkly at the quiet, almost not-there moan. The silky black waterfall of their hair falls together as identical mouths hungrily meet, and they blend to the point of not knowing where one begins and the other ends. Smooth skin meets and melds.

This is not one of those fleeting moments where she loves her sister, but Parvati has never really cared.

The two of them - bare. Bare skin and twisting limbs, strangled gasps and the clenching of long fingers in dark tresses. Heat and liquid and hearing her own voice (but not) shriek her name in desperation. Looking into black eyes and seeing nothing but endless tunnels of lust. This is what Parvati loves. When it is over, she sleeps calmly entwined with herself.

But Padma - well, Padma has always felt guilty. Her Ravenclaw mind searches for a justification, a reason, and she refuses to face the truth (to face Parvati) because Padma has never understood her sister.

So she dilutes her rigid mind's insistent scream of _incest_ by bringing in a man.

The man's green eyes are so pretty that Parvati almost doesn't mind.

He was such a timid boy back at Hogwarts that Parvati is quite blindsided by who he is now. She refuses to involve him at all until she understands. Parvati is like this: controlling and possessive and in love with herself and the physical, in love with wrongness and in shattering what is set in stone.

The war recreated her.

Harry is like this: tired and toostrong and scarred and looking for a bit of normal wrongness so he can breathe again - let go of being trapped in an inescapable mold - and not really caring about consequences because he understands now that the mold is an unbreakable shield as well. Old. Muscled and dangerous and _old_.

The war recreated him.

Padma only ever knew about war in books before Harry came. She didn't know about never blocking someone in. She didn't know it is taboo to hold back screams during sex only to let them suddenly break loose - she didn't know that she has to let sound build up. She didn't know a lot of things, but she learns for the sake of a little peace in her own head.

Parvati already knew. Parvati knew very well, but she never taught Padma because she could always revert to pre-war (before manipulation and betrayal and horror and screams and rotted blood and liquefied hearts and withered eyeballs) when faced with an innocent mirror of what she should be. With Harry inside her, though, she drags her twin downdowndown until innocence is choking in blood and nightmares and post-orgasm knife-throwing lessons. She makes Padma reflect Parvati's own mind to go with her body, and the end result is a painful clarity that Parvati never stops pressing against kitchen counters and burying her fingers in.

Padma knows the war is over, but Parvati and Harry know that soldiers are soldiers forever.

Harry trails his calloused hand steadily up Padma's trembling outer thigh before weaving his deft digits in the spill of Parvati's hair as she moans around a mouth full of Padma and he takes her from behind.

The three of them - vulnerable. Vulnerable necks and sliding bodies, grasping hands and the tasting of souls with knowledgeable tongues and even more knowledgeable fingers. Spasming bodies and torn sheets and bruised wrists and clawed backs and bitten shoulders. Kiss-reddened mouths and black irises ringed with kohl. Smooth skin meets and melds. Entrusting their bodies to each other and having nothing else broken. This is what they love.

Parvati does not love Padma in anything more or greater than moments. She knows better. She accepts Harry as her peer in all experiences, respects him for it, and leaves it at that.

Harry has spent his heart for the world. He is used and broken, thrown to the side and incapable of love. Parvati understands and doesn't want it anyway - it is simply another mental scar of her lover's to poke and prod and bleed until she has mapped it out with pearlescent nails - while Padma is too subconsciously afraid to think on the subject.

Padma. Padma is an intellectual. She loves both her lovers - loves them enough to not leave the instant she realizes that they are destroying and rebuilding her in their image. She loves them loves them loves them, but she is an intellectual. Since when is a bookworm ever learned in matters of the heart? Never. So she loves them loves them loves them...and doesn't even recognize it.

So it is wrong - _they_ are wrong - and they know it but don't care anymore. They have been undone and re-sewn, and their new cotton stuffing still has burrs left in it. They know but don't care in the nature of the world-wide epidemic. Willful ignorance. Denial. Thoughtless acceptance (thoughtless - they accept but never think on it, live with the thoughts flitting too whisper-fast to even be real).

The moments meet and meld, and self-deception is nothing less than a gift.

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A/N: My so-called friends won't let me go to the hospital because it's Christmas. My friend suddenly slipped into a coma (what the hell are doctors good for if they're completely wrong?) last night, two days before she was supposed to be moved out of ICU. So here I am...posting. 

What do you think? By the way, I am not in any way bashing threesomes by the use of certain words such as "wrongness" - but all must admit that long-term threesomes are disapproved of in British and American society. Repressed prudes.

My apologies to any repressed prudes reading this.

This is a gift fic for...gods, I wrote her name down, but I lost the paper and deleted the email. Well, they requested Patils/Harry that wasn't fluffy, and this is what came out. Whoever you are, if you read this, tell me. I hope it's what you wanted.

Title translation: the first to correctly guess the title gets to request a fic centering around a certain character.


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